Who doesn’t like pounding through months of work… in only a week or two… for free? Welcome to pitching business at an agency.

On one hand, agencies are grappling with poorly written client briefs. Without even realizing it, time-starved client-side marketing chiefs are inadvertently setting agencies up to fail by delegating critical brief writing down to lower level marketing managers. Unfortunately, these more junior clients don’t have the same level of strategic horsepower required to properly brief a marketing services firm. Ultimately, this results in agencies showing up to present to the senior decision-maker – with the quality of that work in question.

On top of this, it’s no secret the marketing services industry has become fragmented. From new marketing technology and in-house agencies, to Google and the Consultancies, clients have new options. In fact, clients are now questioning who provides the most effective marketing strategy, customer insight, activation and measurement. Is it agencies? Is it the consultancies? Marketing technology? Or, should we just do it all ourselves?

And finally, agencies tend not to be as buttoned down and aligned as they should be with their pitching process. Add in a multi-office or multi-agency pitch situation, and you’ve got a real mess.

Simply put, those agencies with the highest win rates operate differently.

Take a moment to evaluate your agency and see how your team stacks up.